Here is a story about one of my favorite architects along with some art suggestions that would work with the Prairie Style.

To find out more about this print by Jan Kirstein click here for types of prints available, mats, and frames.

To find out more about this print by Jan Kirstein click here for types of prints available, mats, and frames.

To find out more about this print “The Shaman’s Journey” by Jan Kirstein click here for types of prints available, mats, and frames.

To find out more about this print “Justice” by Jan Kirstein click here for types of prints available, mats, and frames.

And while you are looking at these prints, you can tour all of Fine Art America’s website for many other artist’s works available, as well as additional works by Jan Kirstein. Just click here for more available on Fine Art America.

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Thinking you might like to spice up your walls with a dash of creative spirit in the form of uplifting art, but finding all the choices for frames, mats, and hanging so baffling? Here are some helpful tips for hanging fine art in your home. Check out these suggestions, and maybe this will help clear the confusion!

Just click this photo to see this helpful Houzz article on tips for hanging art.

To see how to select framing options, choose mats or to purchase click here.

To see how to select framing options,choose mats or to purchase click here.

To see how to select framing options,choose mats or to purchase click here.

To see more images like these, click here to look around Fine Art America to see more of my works, by Jan Kirstein, or look over the whole website to see many other artists’ works as well! Enjoy your visit.

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What message do you want to send to yourself every day, or to your friends? Here is a great way to send constant affirmations: choose a word of affirmation surrounded by the visual energy of that word as interpreted by fine artist Jan Kirstein.

These messages, surrounded by corresponding energy of that word will not only evoke feelings from within the viewer, but imbed that concept in the subconscious mind to travel with you no matter where you go on your daily journey.

Surround yourself with an image next to your front door that you see every time you enter or leave your house, or embellish your bathroom or bedroom with pillows, shower curtains, towels, or totes. Surround yourself and others to become the best version of yourself.

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So often, permission to create is denied to us through a variety of societal restraints as well as self imposed restrictions of judgements and insecurities. To create is a right you are born to fulfill. And what better way to begin creating than in an unlined journal. Write your thoughts and add your sketches. You deserve the right to find your voice.

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Children’s Story coming to Amazon.com soon, written and illustrated by Janis Kirstein. You don’t want to miss this!

In a world of conflict and division, this is the story of two very unlikely animals who are born literally joined at the hip. Their life journey and close proximity force these two creatures to learn to get along, or they will not survive the Amazon jungles of their village home.

This unlikely pair are born together in the tradition of the Mexican Alebrijes, which are brightly colored Oaxacan-Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures originating from the paper mache- and/or-wood carved adaptions which were pioneered by Arrazola, a Mexican craftsman in the 1930’s. Miraculously enough, this is the story of an Alebrijie that actually comes to life as an African Lion and a South These two animals have no choice but to learn the lessons of cooperation and understanding which results in appreciation and shared love. Through their newly gained empathy and understanding, they begin to resolve their frustrating differences through a multitude of hilarious adventures. This children’s story provides a humorous example of two characters forced to live together as one and how they grow from a place of constant irritation with one another to a new place of understanding, flexibility and love.

Many links to lesson plans and relevant information for classroom teachers will be included.

I am am almost ready to push the publish button on Amazon, so stay tuned!

Lesson plan link coming soon!

An art piece based on the inspiration of the Mexican Alebrijes, or brightly colored animals made in the 1930’s.

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I am presenting the opening of my Etsy store today with prints, totes and pillows with my designs inspired by my meditations on the seven chakras found in the human body. Also, I am presenting thoughts on art and meditation as well, so please enjoy a tour!

Design I created after meditating on my Rook chakra

Click on thumbnails to enlarge design I created after meditating on my root chakra

Art Is Meditation
Inspired Life
Why making art is the new meditation

By Maia Gambis August 25
Many of us have heard about the benefits of meditation, but sometimes find it hard to do. Fewer of us know about the profound benefits of artistic expression. Creating art, however, is another way to access a meditative state of mind and the profound healing it brings.
“Art is a guarantee to sanity,” said Louise Bourgeois, a French-American artist who died in 2010 at the age of 98. She even went on to add, “…This is the most important thing I have said.” For Bourgeois, art — making art — was a tool for coping with overwhelming emotion. She says she remembers making small sculptures out of bread crumbs at the dinner table when she was a little girl – as a way of dealing with her dominating father. Art was more than an escape – it kept her sane.
Art therapy has a healing effect for a variety of ailments, including depression, trauma and illness. and is effective across age, gender or ethnicity. In a recent study of cancer patients, an art therapy intervention — in conjunction with conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation — not only diminished symptoms typically associated with cancer such as pain, fatigue and anxiety, but also enhanced life expectancy. The study, its authors said, was based on the belief that “the creative process involved in the making of art is healing and life-enhancing. It is used to help patients, or their families, increase awareness of self, cope with symptoms, and adapt to stressful and traumatic experiences.”
[Five ways to thrive in an uncertain world]
Art is not only healing for individuals suffering from severe illness. Here are four reasons why creative activity is such a potent recipe for psychological well-being:

Art is a vehicle for meditation and self-connection
Most of us can understand that art provides an escape to a sometimes harsh reality, but where does art’s healing potential come from? It impacts the state of our minds: Enjoying emotional stability is largely about taking responsibility for how we feel.
Research has shown the power of meditation and the science behind it. One of the reasons it is so powerful is that it fosters acceptance. Creating art is a type of meditation, an active training of the mind that increase awareness and emphasizes acceptance of feelings and thoughts without judgment and relaxation of body and mind.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge design I created after meditating on my Solar Plexus chakra.

Art, like meditation, allows us to create space between our often negative, anxious thoughts and connect with our true selves – as opposed to with the fleeting or false sense of identity we sometimes have when we are caught up in our thoughts and emotions. Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher, writes: “Identification with thoughts and the emotions that go with those thoughts creates a false mind-made sense of self, conditioned by the past… This false self is never happy or fulfilled for long. Its normal state is one of unease, fear, insufficiency, and non-fulfillment.” Creating art is about reaching a state of consciousness and breaking free from the constant debilitating chatter of the mind.

Sacral chakra meditation

Art provides a feeling of flow and freedom
Similarly to meditation, art can help us tap into a deeper and more quiet part of ourselves. We enter into a state of flow and present-moment awareness. “All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness,” Tolle writes. Artists experience that creative activity has the potential to tap into a space of true consciousness of being, void of interpretation. In this space, there can be a sense of having no physical parameters; no body, or form to separate one from the other.

Art allows for true self-expression
The process of making art overrides the need for verbal communication. Creativity is its own language and enables humans to connect with one another — and themselves — on a non-verbal level. In therapy it can be an effective way of saying the unspeakable as is shown through the use of creative therapies with children. This also explains how we can be moved to the core when looking at a work of art, or even listening to music, without necessarily knowing the specifics about its origin. Art exists within its own non-verbal parameter and thus frees us up for unadulterated self-expression.
[Do these exercises for two minutes a day and you’ll immediately feel happier]

Meditation on Heart chakra

Art helps us become steady and centered
As a plus, it is interesting to note that Bourgeois, when asked to comment on her extensive body of work spanning her entire lifetime, says what impresses her most “is how constant [I] have been.” Perhaps we need to redefine what we consider to be a storybook happy ending. Happiness may be less a matter of experiencing sharp highs (often followed by deep lows), and more a matter of nurturing a space that provides stability and a constant connection to our true selves.

This article is republished from our content partner Fulfillment Daily: Daily Science-Backed News for a Happier Life, founded by Stanford University psychologist Emma Seppala, who is also Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford’s School of Medicine.

Throat chakra meditation

Comments from Jan Kirstein

The manifestation of creative abundance, for me involves the practice of Reiki, daily meditation, Tapping, self hypnosis and positive affirmations. I think something is coming together with all this activity and I invite you to share what you do to enhance your creativity.

The musician Rachmoninoff used self hypnosis at a certain point in his career. Up until that point, his music was not well received by the public. After he began the discipline of self hypnosis, his music became an overnight sensation. Tapping the subconscious mind… Most probably the best way to actualize your creative potential.